Recommended Reading: Selections from the forthcoming Women Writing Brazil issue of PEN America’s Glossolalia.
Dispatch from Brazil
The Art of Writing
At The Morning News, Ben Shattuck explores the similarities between paintings and fiction writing. He explains that pictures convey emotion the way stories convey plot, through composition. Pair with this Millions essay on learning about a book from paintings.
●
●
Old Writers, New Media
Which convergence between classic author and modern technology is more off-putting: the University of Virginia's William Faulkner recordings, or this YouTube video of Leo Tolstoy sawing wood?
“Gundersonia, land of the really free.”
Recommended Reading: Return to Oakpine author Ron Carlson’s short story, “How Things Have Actually Changed Since We Did Secede from the United States.”
●
●
Kai and Uncle Ruslan: When Memes Go Dark
“‘It’s important to realize how the funniness in these videos [such as those featuring Kai the axe-wielding hitchhiker and Uncle Ruslan] is really close to something that’s desperately unfunny,’ says Mark O’Connell, who wrote Epic Fail: Bad Art, Viral Fame, and the History of the Worst Thing Ever.”
●
●
Election Year Reading
An election year is upon us, and at the Times, John Williams offers up some reading material for the months to come. Among the books mentioned is my favorite, Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72.
●
●
App Happy
Several recent novels -- among them Dave Eggers’s The Circle and Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge --tackle the effects of social media on our world. The latest, Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen, may be the best of the bunch, writes Andrew Hulktrans. At Bookforum, he explains why Cohen's depiction of an app-saturated world is unparalleled. You could also read Jonathan Frederick Post on Cohen’s novel Witz.
●
●